The new year approaches,
the last page of
my calendar set
to be torn off and
a new one
placed on my desk,
counting off
the year ahead,
one day at a time,
a day returning
only in faint memories;
and how shall we remember that one
day
we leave behind, each
day
gone, torn off and replaced?
Christmas Eve
and the sky is rich,
starlit, full, and silent,
and the
soft refrains
of peace resound,
echoing back
to
hearts attuned,
hearts beating, and still,
waiting, anticipating
… Peace,
Peace on earth and goodwill.
The lake is weaving its crystals
into the winter’s world of ice and
snow;
the chickadee and nuthatch, dove
and junco, feeding below my window,
prepare themselves, too, for the
season ahead.
(Part of the Princess Series of Poems)
Belle’s beast discovered love in
Villeneuve’s Beauty,
keeping him alive, back in his
castle prison, nursed
to health rather than left to die
by a pack of wolves gnawing,
gnashing; and she, the inventor’s
daughter, motherless, wanting more,
discovered her love for him in
being set free, Beast prepared
to stay a beast forever, the last
rose petal falling, because
he loved her, an unspoken gesture,
not knowing she would,
with a kiss, an admission of love
returned, set him free,
the spell broken, and a prince once
more restored, enchanted,
in this tale as old as time,
song as old as
rhyme,
Beauty and the Beast.
